Could someone tell me if its possible to play a custom map with custom game option as opposed to a scenario.

I really would like to play an earth map but i dont like the scenarios because you cant change the settings at the beginning of a game. Example being changing victory types and random personalities.

so far I know not. You'd have to edit the wbsfile with an Editor such as notepad for that. Look in the tutorials, think there's one that can explain it to you,